The invention relates to a valve assembly for a tire pressure management system.
Tire pressure management systems such as, for example, central tire inflation systems can be utilized to manually and/or automatically increase or decrease tire pressure. Typically, a tire pressure management system utilizes a wheel valve affixed to each wheel for effecting tire pressure adjustments. However, the wheel valves known in the art are only effective over a narrow operating range of tire pressures.
As a non-limiting example, the operating range for a conventional wheel valve may be up to about a tire pressure of 100 pounds per square inch (psi). When exposed to tire pressures greater than the aforementioned pressure, said conventional wheel valves may leak or fail. Additionally, such wheel valves may not perform well at low tire pressures. As another non-limiting example, when the tire, pressure is below 5 psi, conventional wheel valves may fail to close. Such a failure may result in the tire pressure approaching 0 psi and the tire decoupling from the wheel rim.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a valve assembly which overcomes the disadvantages known in the prior art designs.